


let the soft animal of your body

by autoclaves



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (mitski voice) woke up in a safehouse singing honey let's get married, Fluff, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scenes, Obligatory Scottish Safehouse Fic, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), every ep of s5 is a nightmare let's have some fluff, food as a whole entire love language, martin cooks things. jon cooks things. they say i love you a lot, very vague spoilers only up to 159!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24180472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autoclaves/pseuds/autoclaves
Summary: Standing in the warm kitchen, slats of sepia light filtering through onto the counter in front of him, Martin doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He half expects them to go through the countertop entirely, glossy and solid as it is. He isn’t used to any of it, yet. The safehouse. Jon. Beams of sun pouring into his hands. After being deprived of everything of significance for so long, the longing that crashes over him is almost painful in its tangibility. He wants to laugh, to sob, to scream and hear it echoed back against the neat, square walls of the safehouse.In the end, he doesn’t do any of these things. He makes eggs instead. He can do that, can’t he? Use his hands for something simple and plain and good.(Or: In the safehouse after it all, Martin starts cooking.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 86
Kudos: 361





	let the soft animal of your body

**Author's Note:**

> getting this out of my system before the new episode drops, killing me instantly & on the spot!!
> 
> title: wild geese by mary oliver ("you only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves" 🥺)
> 
> (previously called "say it's here, where our pieces fall in place")

Standing in the warm kitchen, slats of sepia light filtering through onto the counter in front of him, Martin doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He half expects them to go through the countertop entirely, glossy and solid as it is. He isn’t used to any of it, yet. The safehouse. Jon. Beams of sun pouring into his hands. After being deprived of everything of significance for so long, the longing that crashes over him is almost painful in its tangibility. He wants to laugh, to sob, to scream and hear it echoed back against the neat, square walls of the safehouse.

In the end, he doesn’t do any of these things. He makes eggs instead. 

He can do that, can’t he? Use his hands for something simple and plain and good. 

Martin cracks four eggs into a ceramic bowl—white with blue flowers, a chip on the edge closest to him—and beats them with the back of a spoon until they’re creamy and butter-yellow. It’s the color of blooming goldenrods; the vibrancy makes him ache. He suspects a lot of things will be making him ache in the next few days, as he comes to realize just how long they’d been missing from his life. 

He drizzles oil into the pan, turns on the heat to low. Slides the salted eggs around until they’re mostly-done and still soft, then divvies the whole pile between two plates. Adds pepper to season. The earthenware of the plates is warmed up nicely under his hands when he picks them up and carries them to the table he’s set with mismatched silverware. 

When Martin opens the door into the muffled quiet of the bedroom, Jon is just now going through the sleep-stumble motions of waking up. He pulls himself into a sitting position against the pillows and yawns with knees tucked into his chest like a child. 

“I made you eggs,” Martin says, quietly. His voice comes out a little raspy; he is still relearning how to have a presence, an announced one. Jon makes a drowsy, inquiring noise and rubs at his eyes. 

“Eggs?” 

“Yeah, eggs. They’re not much, but—” He gestures outside. “They’re in the kitchen if you want some.” 

One hand twitches out of the covers to seize Martin by the wrist. Jon’s hair is rumpled and his glasses have been fumbled crookedly onto the bridge of his nose. He looks tired, even now after just waking up. “I love you,” he says, with a conviction and fervency that belies the mundanity of Martin’s actions. But perhaps that is the point. 

“I love you, too,” Martin says back, rolling the words as softly as he knows how. They stick in his mouth even after they’ve left, filling the gap between his tongue and the roof of his mouth like hoarded sweets, or a permanent occupant. 

Jon shifts his hand to hold it properly. His thin fingers press their way into the gaps between Martin’s. “I know. I just wanted to say it.” There is no capital  _ K  _ in that sentence. This is something Jon knows. This is something the Archivist inherits from Jon, not the other way around. 

They eat the eggs sitting next to each other instead of across from. Jon’s arm brushes against his when he gestures broadly to illustrate his dialogue, and Martin feels very real, very safe, in the way that scarcely hurts at all. 

— 

They go to town for groceries. Daisy’s not-unimpressive stockpile of canned non-perishables can probably last them a good while yet, but Martin wants to cook with fresh food again, and he thinks the normality of going shopping could only do them both good. 

Jon doesn’t protest. He pushes the cart while Martin lines the bottom of it with rice and beans and pasta, then methodically works his way up to everything else; chicken, vegetables, milk, sugar, a bag of crisps just for fun—the list he’s been keeping in his head grows exponentially every time he thinks of a new recipe, and Jon continues to indulge his ramblings epiphanies with a fond smile. 

At some point in the middle of deciding which brand of sour cream they’re going to buy, Martin notices that they’re bickering the way he’s seen married couples do at the store. It settles something heavy and warm inside him. It feels good. It feels right. He grabs two containers of the brand that Jon is animatedly advocating for, throwing both into the cart. Jon looks startled at this easy concession. Martin kisses him sweetly on the cheek, and then he looks downright stunned. It’s an endearing expression. 

“When we get home we can make pierogi to eat with this. It’s been a while since I’ve tried my hand at proper Polish food.” 

“I—oh. I’d like that. Very much.” 

There’s a pause as Jon scrutinizes the rest of the dairy section. “Martin,” he says with his back turned, still facing the rows of cheese and yogurt and heavy cream. “You said  _ home.  _ About the safehouse.” 

Martin takes a tentative step towards him. “Should I not have?” he asks. He can still feel leftover condensation from the sour cream tubs beading on his hands—their food, their kitchen, a home built on the act of care. 

Jon turns to look at him then. His face is lit up with an intensity deliberate in its fierceness. “No, keep calling it that.  _ Home.  _ It sounds right.” 

— 

Martin starts making breakfast every morning. Neither of them are fond of eating right after they wake, so it’s a light affair most days: eggs, sometimes, in varying forms, or toast with sliced fruit and jam. He learns that Jon has a sweet tooth, and a fondness for strawberry jelly, although he’ll obligingly eat anything Martin sets in front of him with an almost surprised expression every time, as if he hadn’t expected to be cared for like this. (He learns that he wants to make this—breakfast, and also caring—routine enough that Jon has no cause for surprise about it.) He learns that Jon isn’t a morning person. Most days, he’ll wake later than Martin, and only stumble out of their bedroom after the kettle is put on. 

He doesn’t mind at all. Jon had offered to help, multiple times, but Martin always ended up waving him off. He finds himself liking the motions of cooking, the physicality of slicing and holding and tasting. The way there’s an end result, as well, one that is both necessary and enjoyable, no matter its simplicity. It’s a reminder that his body can do something useful for the one he loves—no, he corrects himself. Something good. Something kind. Usefulness has nothing to do with it. 

Today, Jon presses up behind him and wraps his arms around Martin’s waist. They’re lined up chest to back with hardly any space between, Jon’s head pushing against his shoulderblades. 

“I love you, good morning,” he mumbles into Martin’s shirt. 

Martin smiles, pushing back into his warm, sleep-rumpled figure. Lips press against the nape of his neck. “Sleep well, love?” 

There’s a faint noise of assent behind him. Martin clumsily pats one of Jon’s hands in acknowledgement and starts cutting the strawberries. He’ll spread sweet ricotta cheese on the toast, then top it off with the fruit slices and a drizzle of honey. They haven’t tried this combination yet, but it sounds excellent. 

“What’re you doing?” Jon, sounding more cognizant now, hooks his bony chin over Martin’s shoulder to peer at the spread of fruit in front of him. 

Martin half-heartedly prods him off. “Chin. Sharp.” 

In retaliation, Jon presses down harder, pinching Martin’s shoulder between his jaw and throat. It’s such a childish move that Martin has to laugh at him for it. Jon glares, until he registers the strawberries and ricotta and his interest flits to that, instead. 

“On toast?” he asks, pointing at the ingredients. He’s always so genuinely interested in whatever recipes Martin makes up; the attention is unexpected and gratifying. 

“With honey. Maybe I’ll put mint on it.” Martin strokes the top of his head, and Jon tilts his face up with a slow blink, a bit like a cat basking in the sun. 

“That’s a new recipe.” 

“Mm, d’you think it’ll be any good?” 

“Everything you make is good.” 

Martin wrinkles his nose at him, and Jon grins, darting away. His eyes crease in amusement. 

“It’s true. You can’t do a single thing wrong, Martin Blackwood.” 

“Shush, you.” Martin catches him by the hand and brings a piece of strawberry to his lips. Jon obediently eats it, but first he bends his head to kiss Martin’s wrist, right above his pulse point. It’s such a thoughtlessly sweet gesture that it makes them both flush when they realize. 

— 

Jon stirs the red mass of stewed-down tomatoes and raises both eyebrows as he lifts the spoon up for a taste. The air wafts with the smell of garlicky tomato sauce. 

“Martin, this is not pasta sauce.” 

Martin leans over the pot. “I mean, I don’t think—oh, that’s. Yeah. That looks more like soup. Huh.” 

“It tastes good? Shame if we didn’t use it,” Jon says with a frown, tilting the spoon in Martin’s direction. Martin tastes, and hums in pleased agreement. 

“It does taste good. Maybe we’ll just have pasta soup, then.” 

Jon looks vaguely miffed. “That’s an insult to—” 

“I don’t know if you were going to say pasta or soup but do not finish the sentence.” Martin clangs together two pans as Jon begins to protest. “I did not hear, I am not hearing—” 

Laughing, Jon grabs one of the pans to set it down safely out of Martin’s reach and puts a hand over his mouth. “No, no, enough out of you, start the noodles so we can eat pasta soup for dinner.” 

“So glad we’re in agreement.” Martin snatches back the pan, because that’s the kind of petty person he is, and reaches for the cupboards above them. “Do you want farfalle for the noodles? Or shells?” 

“We have tortellini,” Jon says. 

“We have everything because you insisted on buying all the fun shapes,” Martin mutters. Jon rolls his eyes, as if he wasn’t the one who wanted to buy different kinds of pasta every time they went to the store. (They have an entire shelf just full of variously shaped-noodles now. There are seven just in Martin’s line of vision, because he hadn’t had the heart to put a stop to things.) He rummages for the tortellini anyway. It’s squeezed in at the back, slightly crushed and half-empty, but there seems to be enough left for two portions when he gives the box an investigative rattle, so he takes it out. 

Jon neatly ducks his head to avoid the tortellini, sidesteps to pick up the basil, and throws it into the pot over Martin’s shoulder in the same motion. Jon encroaches on his space like he’s always been there, and Martin is learning how to expect him. Their arms bump into each other’s; Martin spills the full pot of water he’s carrying, and Jon yelps, startled. It’s no aching, flawless domesticity, but maybe someday it will be. They’ll stay in the safehouse and learn how to cook around each other, cook for each other. 

— 

He starts making bread mostly out of boredom. Once they’re settled, there’s not much to  _ do _ in the safehouse, really. Jon is busy reading a statement, and wants to run some errands later, leaving Martin alone to fill the time for a while. The kitchen has been stocked with plenty of flour, yeast, and salt, so bread seems like a logical decision. 

Martin only has vague memories of his mother baking, from when he was very young and she had been well enough to have time for things like baking. He doesn’t remember much of the process other than the warm, wafting smell of it, but still, it can’t be too hard. He searches up a recipe on the Internet, measures out heaping cups of flour, and combines it part by part with the yeast and pinches of salt already dissolved in boiling water. The resulting mixture is a little too gloppy to look right, so he sifts an additional half cup of flour into it. 

Then he kneads. He doesn’t quite know how long he kneads for, only that something about the shifting weight of the dough feels soothing. It’s a busy kind of monotony, not a mindless one, and there’s no room to get lost in the push-fold-turn of the motions. On an impulse, he adds a handful of rosemary to it before settling the whole thing aside to rise under a blue and white dish towel. 

He’s somehow exhausted after doing that. It feels productive, though, like he’s finished something worth doing. The flour under his fingernails and the piece of dough he has to scrape off his hands is evidence enough of that. 

The dough takes about an hour to properly rise. There’s probably a more exact science to determining its readiness for baking, but Martin just prods it a bit and decides it feels fine when the dough springs back after a second. He greases the cast iron pan and slides the whole mass in. The oven gets turned to two-hundred Celsius. 

And all too soon, he’s staring at a loaf of bread, golden and crusty, laid on the counter in front of him. The entire kitchen smells like fresh-baked bread now. 

Martin eats without even waiting for it to cool, cutting thick slices off the loaf directly from the pan and biting into them standing up, hissing as the steaming inside scalds his mouth. He isn’t sure when the tears start coming, but they do, at some point. 

It’s not really out of sadness that he’s crying. Nowadays, things are just—too much, sometimes. He’s still getting used to the immediacy of his emotions. There are moments of technicolor happiness that he hadn’t remembered could feel so real, but other, harsher sentiments hurt just as keenly when they come back. So he cries for no particular reason over a loaf of bread made by his hands, and tries desperately to feel anything except grief for the Lonely. He doesn’t miss it, but as silly as it sounds, he thinks he might miss the distance it had afforded him. The isolated detachment of its mists. It doesn’t make sense, but he supposes emotions rarely do. 

When he’s finished, all but drained of tears and loss, the bread has cooled enough for him to properly taste the slices. The bread is soft on the inside and has a chewy crust. The rosemary gives it a faint woodsy, spicy scent. He does feel better, slightly. He sometimes has trouble naming specific emotions now, but he knows this one is good. The opposite of emptiness. 

Jon comes in, then, while Martin is beginning the washing up. The click-jingle of his keys in the lock is growing to be a familiar sound, and so is his presence when he slips into the kitchen looking well-sunned and pleased. 

“Hi,” Martin says, reaching out to quickly squeeze Jon to his side. 

“Hello, beautiful. I got the milk. And more olives, the big stuffed kind you like.” 

“Oh, that’s—that’s really good timing, actually. I made bread while you were out.” He scrubs the inside of a bowl and gestures to the pan next to him, now about a third empty. 

Jon makes an appreciative noise, sniffing it. “Still warm. We can have it for lunch?” 

Martin nods. Jon ends up perched on the countertop, swinging his legs and tearing pieces from the loaf with his fingers. They make a meal out of it without even getting any plates out, cutting generous slices of bread to eat with rinds of cheese and the green olives Jon just brought. The loaf disappears in no time, so Martin starts making a new one for tomorrow. He’s enjoyed doing it for today. 

“... and alcohol also helps bread rise,” Jon is saying, avidly. Somewhere in the middle, they’ve opened a bottle of raspberry wine, and it’s possible they’re the slightest bit tipsy from it. Or, Jon is the slightest bit tipsy. Martin can hold his liquor fine. 

“That can’t be true.” From what he remembers of high school chemistry, Martin is actually pretty sure it is true, but he likes to hear Jon talk about things—sure enough, Jon points a shaky finger at him and rattles off something smart about evaporation and gas bubbles. 

“We should,” Jon says, bringing the bottle of wine very close to his face and going interestingly cross-eyed. “We should test it. Martin, we should put this in the bread instead of water.” 

Martin obtains the bottle, takes a gulp—wineglasses are overrated, and also too far away to deal with—and squints at its sloshing contents dubiously. “Never heard of fruit wines being used in bread. Maybe a little?” 

“A little,” Jon agrees vaguely. He knocks the base of the bottle so that it tips, and dark liquid splashes into their mixing bowl. 

“Okay.” Martin shrugs, starting to knead again. Might as well. Midway through this, Jon pushes his way between Martin and the counter and throws both arms around his shoulders. His head tucks itself into the crook of Martin’s neck. Tipsy Jon is affectionate—even more so than usual, he’s learning. 

“I have dough on my hands. And wine,” Martin tells him. “You have to let go of me eventually.” 

“No, I don’t.” 

Jon’s body is so warm and quivering and alive. Martin laughs against his hair and relents. “No, I guess you don’t.” 

— 

Jon bends over the orange with a furrowed brow and an expression of such intense concentration that an observer would think he was working with explosives. He’s peeling it piece by piece, short nails digging into the skin and separating fruit from rind, pulling apart the slices with careful, deliberate movements. The color of the orange is bright against his hands, rounding out the sharpness of his knuckles and joints. 

Martin moves closer to him, and Jon shifts his arm so that he can wedge himself under it. The sofa’s big enough for three, maybe four, but he can’t imagine not pushing close like this. Neither, he imagines, can Jon. 

He gently touches the crease on Jon’s forehead. “You look tense,” he says softly, as Jon’s hands set aside the last slice of orange onto a plate and start methodically shredding the peel into small, uneven pieces. 

“I know,” Jon says, words stumbling. “I just—I’m worried. About all of it. About how it’ll end. I guess that’s my job, isn’t it? To watch, and to worry.” 

“I guess that makes it my job to worry about you.” 

“Oh, Martin,” Jon says. It’s an exhale of a breath, soft and aching. “You know you don’t… you know you don’t have to do this for me.” 

“Doesn’t it make it all the more beautiful, then? That I’m choosing to do this for you? Because it makes me happy? Because I love you?” 

Jon lets out a strangled sigh, one that could almost be mistaken for a sob in its force. “Martin, I don’t—I don’t—” 

“It’s alright. I… it might not be alright, later, but it’s alright for now. I have you, don’t I? And you’ve peeled an orange. We should eat it.” 

Jon nods. It’s a quick jerky bowing of the head. “And I have you,” he whispers. “I supposed that must count for something.” 

They end up tangled on the sofa, half-slouching, half-lying along its length. They eat the orange, sweet and cool and pithy. Martin presses slices of it into Jon’s hands; their fingers will smell like citrus later. He recites the scraps of poems he knows off the top of his head, and he tells Jon, over and over,  _ “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.” _ as they hold each other in the blue evening light. He thinks this is what that poem meant by letting yourself feel love, and loved. 

— 

“Martin, I’m making tea, would you like some?” 

Martin, who is trying to clean a suspiciously dark stain on the wall, doesn’t properly process the question, and just hums a distracted noise of assent. 

He’s given up and taken to just scowling at the patch from the floor when there’s the dull clunk of a mug being set down at his elbow. Tea, pale with milk. Jon nudges it forward, where the steam spirals upwards and fades into the air. 

“Drink. We’ll deal with the suspicious stain later.” 

“That’s what you keep saying,” Martin laments. “And now we’re three weeks into our stay, being overrun by suspicious stains that are probably years-old dried blood.” 

Jon just sips amiably from his own mug, long fingers cupped tightly around it, and stares down at Martin until he picks up the tea. 

“We do need to do something about those stains eventually, you know.” 

“Mm, if you like.” Jon sits down next to him and pushes his head affectionately against Martin’s shoulder. His own tea is dark—two sugars, Martin knows—and in a pale green mug with tiny hearts printed around the rim. 

Martin can feel the long comfortable length of Jon’s side pressing against his. The tea is hot and milky, honey stirred into it. (That must have been why Jon was so insistent on buying the jar of blueberry honey last week—Jon is just fine with using sugar as a sweetener, but he knows Martin likes honey when he can get it.) “I love you,” he says. It’s not a declaration anymore, when he says it. It’s just another turn of phrase, passed between them, a gesture to back up the other languages they have managed to make up for themselves. 

“And I you.” Jon leans into him further. Martin brushes a hand through his hair, tugging it out of its falling bun and drawing the hair tie over his own wrist. 

“Braid it for me?” Jon says, shaking the length of his hair out. 

“What, really?” 

“Yes, really. It’s been a while since someone—anyone… did anything with my hair.” 

Martin doesn’t push. Maybe there’s a story behind that, maybe there isn’t. “Okay,” he says, and starts to separate Jon’s dark hair into parts. While he does that, Jon drinks from his mug and steals sips from Martin’s and they both watch the sun creep through the wide-open windows, turning the hardwood floors of the house a mellow, intoxicating gold. 

— 

The Lonely lingers, sometimes. It takes up residence behind Martin’s eyes and refuses to leave, fog drifting in and out of his vision, filling up his head with echoing absence. 

The first time it happens, he stays in bed. It feels like the hardest thing he’s ever had to do is move his limbs; he can barely find the will to keep his eyes open, and even the paralyzing fear that shoots through him _ —not this, not this again, please, not this— _ seems dulled somehow. The first time is a bad day. The second time, Jon brings him green tea, and those fluffy, American-style scones they’d made together the week before. It’s good food; the tea is strong, and the scones are loaded with cranberries and walnuts and dark chocolate, crumbling apart in his hands. 

“I love you,” Jon says, hands brushing over his face and hair and arms as they eat with the blankets pulled up. Tea spills over the rim of his cup onto the tray, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “I love you. You are so loved.” 

“I love you, too,” Martin manages. He presses a kiss to Jon’s temple, lightly. The bone-deep exhaustion aches inside.  _ I really loved you, you know;  _ the past tense of that confession tugs at him.  _ No. No, I still love him. You can’t take that from me.  _

“Do you think we should get a garden?” Jon had been keeping up a stream of quiet, undemanding chatter from his place propped against Martin, but that question snags his attention. 

“I—that would be nice. A garden.” 

“Oh?” Jon strokes his hair in small motions. 

“Yeah. Maybe not one in the yard.” Martin swallows. The truth of the matter is, they can’t stay here forever. But there’s no harm in wanting to, and in wanting to pretend, especially on days like this. “Just a little one. Like a windowsill herb garden.” 

“The kitchen window gets plenty of sun. There’s no drafts. We could.” 

“Yeah, we could.” 

Martin falls asleep dreaming about basil and parsley and thyme and sunbeams. When he wakes up, the light is golden with afternoon, and Jon is shuffling around in the… living room, judging from the noises. The kitchen, maybe? He squeezes his hands together and climbs out of bed. The motion makes his head ring dully, but he has to start somewhere. 

“Jon?” he says, peering into the room. Jon is sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, right in a patch of sunlight, his back hunched over something. 

“Oh! Martin!” Jon’s head snaps around. “I was just… I was—” He slides over so his body is no longer blocking it, and gestures, a little helplessly, to the setup in front of him. Martin looks at the items sprawling across the floor: long, thin boxes the depth of his hand, two unopened bags of soil, several leafy potted plants, seedlings— 

“Are those planters? Did you. Is that, is that for a—” 

“You said you wanted a herb garden,” Jon says, ducking his head. Quieter, he says, “And I wanted you to have one.” 

“Oh.  _ Oh, _ Jon.” 

Jon sets aside the brightly colored packet of seeds that he’d been examining. “Come here?” He opens his arms, and Martin sinks down into them. “Thank you,” he says. “I love you,” he says. He thinks if he says these things enough times, he’ll be able to feel them through the fog-ragged landscape of the Lonely. 

“I don’t know much about plants. This stuff… it was an impulse buy,” Jon confesses with a nervous laugh. “I think Georgie gave me a succulent once, that’s the extent of it.” 

“I guess we’ll have to learn together, then.” 

Martin has never had a good track record with plants, either. The things and people he takes care of aren’t likely to have happy endings. But Jon smiles up at him, guileless, and he so desperately wants this time to be different. He resolves that this time will be different. He will take care of the plants, and he will take care of Jon, and it will be proof that his hands can be good and kind. This time, this time. 

— 

Jon has a low voice, rich and raw like a record-scratch. Martin finds this out when they’re cooking, and apropos of nothing, Jon starts humming. It’s a little melody coming from the base of his throat; it takes Martin a second to place the sound as coming from Jon, and longer still to place the tune. 

“Fleetwood Mac?” he asks, after a few long seconds, turning off the faucet to hear better. 

“Oh, I—I didn’t know you were listening,” Jon says with the edges of a smile on his face. He takes the pan of steaming rice off the heat and eases it lightly onto the counter. A cloud of starchy warmth emanates from the top. 

_ I’m always listening, _ Martin doesn’t say, because that’s too cliché, even for him. It’s true, though, that he’s always aware of Jon’s presence even when it fades into comforting background noise. He’s always aware of whatever Jon has to say or do, files it into his mind with all the other little details he’s collected over the years. 

“No, go on,” he says instead. “It was nice. I bet you have a good singing voice.” 

Jon idly pushes a spoon through the finished rice, and hums again. It’s the chorus of  _ Dreams,  _ where he’d left off the first time. Eventually, he starts singing, bits of songs here and there, and Martin is right; he does have a good voice. Not trained-good, maybe—it’s scratchy and imperfect and halting at first—but there’s an undeniably attractive quality to it. In the warmth of the room, Martin tosses the shredded chicken they’re planning to grill into meatballs, to eat over the rice, and adds another teaspoon of minced garlic. 

Jon’s voice cuts off and a small saucepan is prodded in front of Martin. “Taste. More vinegar, do you think?” 

“Is that the glaze?” 

Jon nods. Martin takes the spoon from his hand to sample—soy sauce and sugar and vinegar. “No, it’s perfect. I’ll get the meat ready.” 

They shape the meatballs and slide them onto wooden skewers. Martin works the grill while Jon brushes on the glaze as the skewers are flipped, deftly working around each other. The sky changes from blue to gold to red-orange, spilling like the inside of a peach, and over it all, Jon’s raspy voice crooning softly,  _ “There is a light that never goes out, there is a light that never goes out…”  _

**Author's Note:**

> writing this fic was just like (there are two things i know for sure) (hozier song) (jon has to say i love you) (it’s quiet here and i have you) (sufjan stevens song) (mitski let’s get married cover) (martin has to say i love you) (not to me not if it’s you) (love is stored in the jonmartin) (thinks about hands) (thinks about food) (i love you i want us both to eat well) (honey don’t feed me i will come back) (thinks about love as a choice over and over and-) 
> 
> tumblr: [@doctortwelfth](http://doctortwelfth.tumblr.com)


End file.
